Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 354

Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them,
“Why are you testing me?


We have many sayings about trust and suspicion: Once burned, twice cautious. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Trust takes years to build; seconds to shatter. I am not upset because of what you did to me, I m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we hear stories of God testing his people; and the people testing their God. In Jewish thought, from what I have heard, that testing of God is morally acceptable. Some suggest that, even as God was testing Abraham when he demanded the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham was also testing God, to see if God would let him go through with it. God's last-minute intervention, according to that thesis, resulted in a stand-off of mutual respect. Abraham had proven his worth before God and Abraham had proven to himself that God could be withstood. 

The Christian tradition is not as sanguine about our testing of God. Baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are already deeply familiar with the overwhelming love and mercy of God. We have no need to test God because God's love has already been demonstrated and proven beyond any doubt on the Cross. We have only to look at the Cross to set all our apprehensions, misgivings and discomfort aside. This tradition -- to put it mildly -- demands an enormous level of maturity among it adherents. 

Because most of us were baptized as infants, and many of us have suffered betrayal among our friends, families, churches, schools and just about every conceivable relationship (!) -- we may be understandably immature in our willingness to trust God. We're just not there yet. 

So perhaps we can have some sympathy for the Pharisees and Herodians who bring a Roman coin to Jesus. They are testing God, an honorable thing to do within their tradition. Obviously, they have not yet seen what must occur. Jesus has yet to be crucified. 

In all four gospels Jesus overwhelms his opponents in every argument. He is never confused; he is never really challenged. His responses to every challenge descend like thunderbolts from the sky. When his opponents finally mount an overwhelming assault upon him, arresting him and dragging him through a series of trials to crucifixion and death, they are again confounded by his silence. 

In this respect our Christian tradition is quite different from the Jewish. Both lead to spiritual maturity but one leads to a joyful, ready compliance to the Mosaic Law; and the other, to a serene, confident faith in God's mysterious ways. 

Christians, perhaps, have a deeper sense of destiny. Despite our reading of the apocalyptic passages of the Old and New Testaments, we still do not know where we're going. 

Although  we have been denied the privilege of testing God, we find our faith in God tested almost daily. Will I accept his invitation to come and see? Will I get out of the boat and walk on water? Will I share my last loaf of bread and what few fish I have? Will I see the empty tomb and believe he has been raised from the dead? 

We must continually set aside our misgivings, born of sad experience, and believe that God is "good, all good and supreme good." There is no one like him. We must daily and many times a day gaze upon the Cross of Jesus and remember he has proven his worth. And we have yet to prove ours.